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THE ATLANTIC WEATHER

SERVICE.

PROF. ALFRED J. HENRY, un

der the direction of the Chief of the Weather Bureau, has established during the last month a meteorological station at Hamilton, Bermuda. This station was needed to complete the chain

may come when scientists will so thoroughly understand these laws that they can with certainty forecast the seasons.

THE U.S. WEATHER BUREAU AT THE PARIS EXPOSITION.

of outposts planted at strategic points, United States Weather Bureau

extending from the Lesser Antilles westward and northwestward to the British possessions. Bermuda is in the track of atmospheric disturbances which pass northeastward from the Florida coast, and which occasionally curve northwestward, striking the southern coast of New England. From this vantage point it will also be possible to forecast with greater accuracy the tracks of storms which occasionally develop great intensity in the Atlantic off the coast of the Carolinas.

Arrangements have also been made by the Weather Bureau for a daily cablegram from the Azores, giving the meteorological conditions in that part of the Atlantic, and also for a daily cablegram from London, summarizing the conditions west of Spain, France, and Ireland. As the forecasters of the Weather Bureau can now determine what conditions storms proceeding from the United States will meet, they are able to predict with considerable certainty the direction such storms are likely to pursue.

The U. S. Weather Bureau has already begun issuing to the captains of the trans-Atlantic liners predictions of the weather for three days out of New York.

The advance made in our knowledge of the laws governing meteorological conditions, and especially in the practical application of these laws to the interests of the mariner and the farmer, has been one of the most remarkable recent developments of science. Prof. Willis L. Moore, Chief of the U. S. Weather Bureau, believes that the time

exhibit was installed during the month of April and opened to visitors. for inspection in completed condition May 15. The building remained open and the exhibit accessible to visitors every day, except Sundays, from 9 a. m. to 6 p. m., from May 15 to September 30, and from 9 a. m. to 5.30 p. m. during the month of October. It was necessary to close a half hour earlier during the month of October on account of darkness, there being no way of lighting the building artificially.

The exhibit was visited by many thousands of people, among whom were meteorologists and those interested in related sciences from all parts of the civilized world. The cloud photographs, the method of making weather forecasts, and the kite and aerial apparatus attracted special attention.

Many interested in aeronautics and air explorations examined the kite exhibit in detail, taking photographs and measurements of the kite, instruments, and apparatus. Notably among these were a number of officers of the German, French, Italian, and Japanese armies and navies.

During the meeting of the International Meteorological Congress, which brought to Paris representative meteorologists from nearly all parts of the world. a special invitation was extended to its delegates and members to visit and inspect the Weather Bureau exhibit. This invitation was accepted, and therefore the exhibit brought the methods, instruments, etc., of the United States Weather Bureau to the attention of those most interested in meteorological work.

It was the special effort of those connected with the exhibit to explain and set forth in the strongest and clearest light possible the aims and methods of the United States Weather Bureau and its practicability and great economic value to the people of the United States and of North America. Special stress was given to the great importance and the value of its weather forecasts and warnings.

As a result of the visit of the Jury of

Awards and their critical examination, the United States Weather Bureau was awarded a Grand Prix. Gold medals were awarded to two officials of the Weather Bureau, Prof. C. F. Marvin for instruments, apparatus, and appliances, and to Prof. A. J. Henry for cloud photographs.

loss by lightning during the year would probably be $6,000,000. One-half of the buildings struck were barns, sheds, warehouses, etc., and about 7 per cent churches and schools; cattle, horses, mules, and pigs were killed by lightning to the value of about $129,955.

POLAR WORK.

PLANS for the Baldwin-Ziegler Polar Expedition ing rapidly, for, unlike the majority of Arctic leaders, Mr. Baldwin is not hampered for want of funds. Mr. Ziegler, the multimillionaire behind the enterprise, has expressed a willingness to pay all expenses under one million dollars. Half a million was the cost of the Italian expedition of last year, and it was to the complete equipment that was thus

THE LOSS OF PROPERTY FROM possible that the Duke of Abruzzi par

LIGHTNING.

N 1898 systematic efforts were made by the United States Weather Bureau to ascertain the frequency of damaging or destructive lightning strokes throughout the United States. The results of the first year's work were published in Weather Bureau Bulletin No. 26, Lightning and Electricity of the Air, and also separately as Weather Bureau Bulletin No. 199, Property Loss by Lightning, 1898. The collection of statistics bearing upon the loss of and damage to property was continued during 1899.

The total number of reports received of buildings struck and damaged or destroyed by lightning during the calendar year 1899 was 5,527, about three times as many as were received during the previous year. In addition to this number, 729 buildings caught fire as a result of exposure to other buildings that had been set on fire by lightning.

The great majority of buildings struck by lightning were not provided with lightning rods. A conservative estimate by Prof. A. J. Henry of the total

tially owed his success.

Mr. Baldwin has chosen the Franz Josef Land route. He has had experience with Peary in Greenland and with Wellman in Franz Josef land. and is thus acquainted with the practical difficulties of both routes. Two ships will take the party north, one returning before the autumn ice blocks retreat, and the second remaining with the men through the winter. Mr. Baldwin plans to take a number of tough Siberian ponies with him, The chances are many against his being able to put them to any practical use, but the one chance is worth providing for.

The summer of 1901 will thus witness the simultaneous inauguration of the most systematic campaign to reach the North and South Poles that has ever been attempted. been attempted. In the Arctics, Peary, Baldwin, Sverdrup, and a Russian party with a vessel of the type of the icebreaking Ermak will push northward, while in the Antarctics two splendidly equipped expeditions, the German and British, will strive to reach the opposite

extreme.

THE BRAZIL-FRENCH GUIANA

B

BOUNDARY DECISION.

Y the award of the Swiss Federal Council, the arbitrators in the dispute as to the frontier line between Brazil and French Guiana, Brazil has obtained the main points for which she contended. Brazil obtains 147,000 square miles of the disputed territory and France not more than 3,000 square miles. The dispute dates back to 1688, when France claimed to the Araguary River, which is parallel to the Amazon The boundary as determined by the award is the River Oyapoc and, from the head source of this river to the frontier of Dutch Guiana, the line of the Tumuck-Humack range.

The decision of the Federal Council of Switzerland is a follows:

"1. That the Japoc or Vincente Pinçon of article 8 of the Treaty of Utrecht is the Oyapoc that debouches to the west of Cape Orange, as has been established by the documents which Brazil has submitted to the tribunal, and that the thalweg of that river, from its mouth to its source, definitively constitutes the first of the frontier lines between Brazil and French Guiana.

"2. That the other frontier line, from the source of the Oyapoc to the point of junction with the Dutch territory, will be that which article 2 of the treaty of arbitration indicated as an intermediate solution-that is to say, the line of division of the waters in the Tumuc-Humac Mountains, forming the northern limit of the Amazon basin."

arctic commerce. Although north of the arctic circle, it is free of ice the year round, as it is reached by an offshoot of the Gulf Stream.

A dam nearly 500 feet in length has been built to protect the harbor, which is deep enough for the largest ships. The town has now some 250 inhabitants, mostly officers and laborers, boasts 50 houses, a hotel, and several shops, and is lit by incandescent and are lamps. The government does not expect the town to grow much larger, but it serves as an outlet for the trade of inland northern Russia, and is a clearing point for the considerable traffic of hides that come down the Obi and Yenisei Rivers.

MR.

A CORRECTION.

R. LITTLEHALES has called state ment in the note appearing in the January number of this Magazine, entitled "The Principles Underlying the Survey of the Bottom of the Ocean for an AllAmerican Trans-Pacific Cable to the Philippines and the Orient.” The cor

rect equation to the curve which, by revolution around a vertical axis, would generate the theoretical form of an isolated submarine peak in which the crushing strength at any cross-section is equal to the combined weight of the portion of the formation above that section and of the superincumbent body of water is

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ALEXANDROWSK.

in which represents the base of Naperian logarithms, the coefficient of

LEXANDROWSK, the little arctic crushing strength of the materials com

ment on the Murman coast two years ago, is becoming a modest center of

earth, aver

age density of these materials, and the density of sea water.

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F

RANK FREDERICK HILDER,

soldier, geographer, and ethnologist, was born in Hastings, England, in 1836; he died in Washington January 21, 1901. Educated at Rugby in the approved manner of the times, he afterward graduated from the British military school at Sandhurst, and entered the army as a cornet in early manhood, at a time when the eyes of all England were turned on India. Sent immediately to aid in quelling the Sepoy rebellion, he soon saw service of such severity and met it with such intrepidity-that he was awarded the Indian Mutiny medal, with special-service bars for Delhi and Lucknow.

It was during this period of his career that Hilder traversed the Indo-Gangetic plain, trod the Himalayan foothills, and visited the provinces and cities of the northwestern empire from Bombay to Kashmir, and from the Punjab to Nepal, laying the foundation for a broad, yet precise, geographic and ethnologic education; and some of the lectures of even the latest years of his life drew inspiration and significant detail from the researches enlivening these early campaigns. He saw service also in Farther India, Borneo, and the Philippines, and after rising through a lieutenancy to the rank of captain was transferred to Africa. Here he won the Egyptian medal, and his skill as military expert and organizer attracted such attention that after his return to his regiment in India he was recalled and promoted to a colonelcy at the express request of the Khedive.

In Africa, as in India, Colonel Hilder seized every opportunity for scientific research; but his tenure in the Egyptian army was cut short by the terrible experience of a sand-storm, which so injured his eyesight that he decided to abandon a military career. Coming to America on his recovery, Colonel Hilder

met again the contagion of military spirit stimulated by our civil war, and did ' special work of importance in the Engineer Corps, but held so firmly to his election of a peaceful life as to decline an American commission. In the later sixties he became the international representative of a small-arms manufactory, and spent fifteen years chiefly in travel through the several Spanish-American countries; and during this period he acquired an extended and intimate acquaintance with languages and peoples, as well as with national leaders and policies. Impressed by the opportunities for international business presented by the actual and prospective republics of Spanish America, he established a house in Chicago, only to be ruined by the fire of 1871; later he combined business enterprises in St. Louis and Mississippi City with notable researches in the archeology of the Mississippi Valley. Unhappily pursued by conflagrations, he turned to research and publication, making important contributions to the projectors of the Pan-American Railway and the Bureau of American Republics.

Colonel Hilder acted as secretary of the National Geographic Society during the year ending June, 1899, afterward becoming Ethnologic Translator in the Bureau of American Ethnology. He continued in this position to the time of his death, though he was detailed as a special agent of the Pan-American Exposition for work in the Philippines during the earlier half of 19 0.

As indicated by his career, Colonel Hilder possessed remarkably strong character; yet he was by instinct a naturalist and student, and devoted the best energies of his life to the increase and diffusion of knowledge. His later publications, through the Bureau of Education and the Bureau of American Republics, as well as through the NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE,

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